


it started out with a kiss

by constellatory



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Developing Relationship, Fluff, Multi, New Year's Eve kisses, bi yukiko? bi yukiko., lowkey yu/the entire IT, yosuke and chie are closet gays in cahoots, you’ll pry the kohai ot3 from my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 22:39:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9207698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constellatory/pseuds/constellatory
Summary: “You’re right, Chie. This is getting out of hand.”Yosuke starts to breathe a sigh of relief, flashing Chie a grateful smile, when Yu continues,“I’ll just have to kiss everyone. That’s the only way for things to be fair.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> (how did it end up like this/it was only a kiss)

Yosuke isn’t sure how things turned out like this.

Yu is draped over his back, arms over his shoulders and chin tucked against Yosuke’s neck. Yosuke can’t see his face, but he knows exactly what his best friend’s expression looks like right now. Most of the others aren’t much better. Yukiko is giggling non-stop, and Rise won’t stop slurring orders for the game she’s trying to get them to play which is Definitely Not The King’s Game, Really, Stop Looking At Me Like That!! Naoto and Kanji look vaguely uncomfortable, and Chie seems to have given up on any semblance of normalcy and is supporting Yukiko in a way similar to how Yosuke is supporting Yu. There’s a long-suffering look on her face that Yosuke feels on a truly bone-deep level, and he tries to give her a subtle nod of support, but she’s too busy trying to calm Yukiko down.

Rise leaps at Naoto and Kanji, and the two of them, startled, open their arms to her without thinking, and then are left mostly holding her, sporting identical blazing red faces. And Teddie... Teddie is just wheeling between everyone, trying to kiss whoever he can regardless of gender because, as he yelled out earlier, “ _a bear’s love knows no boundaries!”_ He is largely rebuffed, except by Yukiko, who allows him to kiss her on the cheek and has another gigglefit immediately afterwards.

This New Year’s Eve was supposed to be tame. What happened?

“Yosuke,” Yu mutters in his ear, and Yosuke very nearly jumps right out of his skin. Yu’s voice is low, commanding, like they’re on the battlefield and not, you know, at Yu’s _house_ , celebrating.

“Y-Yeah?” Yosuke tries to answer, but his voice comes out half a squeak, and he feels like an idiot. Why can’t _he_ get “drunk off the atmosphere” like the others? Rolling his eyes towards the ceiling and sighing through his nose, he wonders, idly, if maybe the amazake they had at the shrine earlier actually was alcoholic instead of the non-alcoholic kind they’d been promised it was. Maybe he should go back and chug some until he starts feeling comfortable draping all over best friends and saying ridiculous things.

“What time is it?”

“Uhhh... 11:30. W-Why? What’s up, partner?” Yosuke tries to look at him, but for whatever reason, Yu takes this as a challenge and ducks back, only to settle his chin on Yosuke’s other shoulder. Yosuke can feel his face burning. _What the hell, he was all up on the girls last time we did this, why’s he all over me now?!_

“It’s almost midnight,” comes the rumbly, low reply, which for some reason makes the hairs on the back of Yosuke’s neck stand up.

“Miiiidniiiiight! That magic time! It’s almost heeeere!” Rise springs out of Kanji and Naoto’s arms and slams into Yu and Yosuke instead, and all three of them go toppling to the floor with a terrific crash. “Senpaiiii! You’ll kiss me, won’t you?” She’s trying to reach around Yosuke to get at Yu with little success, given that she’s not really trying to move and Yu is just calmly sitting there with a body on top of him, shielding him from her attempts. There are arms around Yosuke’s waist, and honestly, at this point, Yosuke isn’t even sure _whose._  

Helplessly caught up in this Yu and Rise tangled-limb sandwich, Yosuke starts to vehemently protest that nobody is kissing anybody (because if they were, why couldn’t _he_ be the one to kiss Rise?!), when Yu, _of course,_ goes,

“Yeah.”

He says it like it’s a vow, and Yosuke cranes his neck around to goggle at him.

Kanji’s yelling something about “do that shit on your own time, dammit” and Naoto looks a little like she wants to sink into the floor and/or spontaneously evaporate. Yukiko, on the other hand, has stopped laughing and looks entranced.

“Kisses? Are we doing kisses? Ooh, kiss me, _I_ want a New Year’s Eve kiss!”

“Okay,” intones Yu, very nearly approaching somber in how measured his voice is, and Yosuke suddenly understands and strongly shares the compulsion to fade into the walls and die.

“Wh— no! Forget it!” This is Chie, sputtering and red, and Yosuke finds himself thanking the gods for her loud mouth. “That’s not happening! Isn’t this... getting a little—?”

Yu considers her for a moment, his eyes flat behind his glasses. Which he put on at some point even though no one knew he even had them on his person. Why does he even _have_ them?

“You’re right, Chie. This is getting out of hand.”

Yosuke starts to breathe a sigh of relief, flashing Chie a grateful smile, when Yu continues,

“I’ll just have to kiss everyone. That’s the only way for things to be fair.”

The room erupts. Rise is whining, still mistakenly clinging to Yosuke instead of Yu and begging to at least go first. Normally Yosuke would be thrilled by having Risette on top of him squirming around, but right now he just feels mortified and bewildered and unprepared and like he wishes there were a real life pause button. Chie’s gone very pale, and is laughing in a deeply uncomfortable way. “Yu-kun, th-that’s not what I meant...”

“You mean, like... everyone?” Kanji is white as a sheet, which is hilarious in contrast to the blush that’s slowly creeping up his neck. Naoto won’t even _look_ at anyone now; she’s using her hat to hide her face and has turned away. She mutters something that no one catches over all the other yelling that’s going on.

“Everyone?! Me too, sensei?!”

Yu only nods. “A man’s word is all he has. I would never lie to you about something like this.”

“What the hell, man! We’re talking about— about _kisses,_ not the end of the world, here!”

“Good thing,” Yu instantly rejoinders in that same flat voice, “or I’d be worried we’d messed up somewhere.”

“Wh— that’s not what I— don’t twist my words like—!”

Yukiko bursts out laughing again. “I get it! It’s funny because we really _did_ just save the world!” She doubles over, nearly knocking Chie to the floor, given that her arm is still around Chie’s shoulders. The fight to stay standing is a lost one when Teddie exuberantly tackles them both, and now the three of them are yet another many-limbed sandwich made of yelling and giggles.

Naoto starts to edge towards the door.

“Oh no you don’t!” Yosuke’s desperate, and though in his mind he whispers a prayer for forgiveness, he can’t let Naoto run. “If we’re all going to go through this, then so are you!”

“Yosuke-senpai...” The look on her face is one of utter betrayal.

“H-How’re you gonna, uh... k- _kiss_ all of us at midnight, senpai?” Kanji, the apparent voice of reason for the moment, is tugging at the neckline of his shirt and staring at the ceiling, shifting from foot to foot. Unlike some, he doesn’t seem entirely reluctant, but he’s not gung ho, either. “You won’t have enough time, right?”

Yu is silent. All the yelling, flailing, giggling, and snapping in the room stops as all eyes turn on him, seeming to sense the sudden gravitas he’s projecting. Somehow, Yu manages to extricate himself from beneath Yosuke and Rise without the slightest bit of apparent difficulty and rises to his feet. His chin is low, his glasses flashing in the light of the living room.

“Don’t underestimate me.”

Rise and Yukiko dissolve into squeals and giggles, respectively, while everyone else looks on in a mix of awe and horror. The spell is most effectively broken by Teddie, who throws both his arms in the air and cries “ _that’s our sensei!”_ prompting Naoto to make an actual break for the door.

No one is quite sure how she failed to manage to escape, but either way, she’s there in the huddle that Yu sets up on the couch — and on the floor below the couch — just before midnight.

“Kanji, shift to your right. Rise, Yukiko, could you sit up? Perfect. Teddie, just stay right there.”

Yu seems to be arranging them in the fashion he deems most efficient for group kissing. Yosuke is trying very, very hard not to look at Chie, who he’s sure is trying very, very hard not to look at him, but their shoulders bump, and in that motion he feels the solidarity of wishing for a comet to fall on the house and obliterate any possibility of this continuing to happen.

There aren’t really earthquakes around here, are there? Even if there were, they’re not likely to happen in the next five minutes. What if he calls the police? He’ll get in trouble for a false report, but it could be worth it just to—

“Looks like we’re ready.”

Yu stands before them — or over them, for those of the group on the floor — looking satisfied with his arrangement. Like a man going to his execution, Yosuke slowly pulls out his phone and flips it open.

`11:58 PM`, the display innocently blinks at him.

Two minutes until his life is over. At least it’ll happen quick.

Yosuke’s just starting to contemplate the utility of crossing himself before he dies when the clock strikes midnight. They know this because of the TV behind them, which has been tuned to the news this whole time, from which a newscaster cheerily announces the New Year. Yu wastes no time in setting to work.

Chie is first up. She and all the other girls are sitting on the couch, side by side, with the boys on the floor below them. Teddie, practically vibrating with excitement, keeps bumping into Yukiko’s legs, and all she does is pat his head indulgently. Kanji has hunched his large frame into the smallest possible crumpled up, cross-legged ball, and seems torn between staying stock still and trying to shift away. He’s so red in the face that Yosuke thinks, distantly, that he’s probably going to give himself a fever or something.

Carefully leaning over in the space between Teddie and Kanji’s bodies, Yu presses a quick little peck to Chie’s cheek. Evidently, that wasn’t what she was expecting, given the surprised blink that follows. After a moment, though, it seems to sink in that a kiss on the cheek is still a species of kiss. She presses a hand to her offended cheek, her face a horrible, splotchy red over her quivering frown, like she can’t decide if she wants to burst out laughing or just punch him in the face.

Yukiko actually tilts her chin up for Yu to kiss her better, and then whoops in excitement, throwing both arms in the air, when she too gets a kiss on the cheek. She collapses onto Chie after that, cackling about kisses and parties and _fun,_ and apparently doesn’t notice it when Chie groans and simply sags beneath her best friend’s weight.

Rise, as shameless as ever, actually flings her arms around Yu’s neck when he leans down to kiss her. This causes him to miss his intended target, and she gets a kiss to the corner of her mouth, instead. Once it’s over, she ends up rapidly tapping her feet on the floor, lost for words, apparently too delighted to speak.

Naoto barely reacts at all. She’s had to take off her cap to make this easier, and she looks flustered and embarrassed. Her shy glance up at Yu as he leans in with a smile, though, is proof — at least to Yosuke — that she’s not as reluctant about this as she was pretending to be all along. She gets a kiss to her forehead, and with a soft sound, she leans back against the couch, pressing her fingertips to the skin Yu kissed and looking quietly — a little — maybe — sort of touched.

Next up are the boys. Yu directs a sharp glance at the clock, and then kneels down on the floor. Somehow, despite his so-called drunkenness, he does this smoothly, without stumbling, and it comes off looking sort of gallant. Kanji is spluttering by the time Yu leans in to kiss his temple, and he comes away from it laughing nervously, rubbing the back of his neck, trying not to smile and failing.

Teddie’s kiss is dropped directly on top of his hair, and he ends up pouting over it. “That was bearly a kiss at all!” he whines while Yu moves on, heedless. In what he’d likely claim was an attempt to heal his broken heart, Teddie tries to wriggle his way up onto the couch to drape across all the girl’s laps and whine and is firmly rejected back onto the floor.

Yosuke is last. He stares at Yu, and Yu stares at him, and the moment that passes as they lock eyes feels like an eternity. Was it like this for everyone else? Time slowing down? Their hearts thrumming in their ears so loudly they almost couldn’t hear anything else? Probably, Yosuke thinks. They’d have to feel this way. Since they’re all getting kissed, and they’re all Yu’s friends, so there’s nothing that’d be different about the way he experiences it, right?

Yu leans in, and the angle of his body and his head partially shields this kiss from the eyes of the others. They’re all wrapped up in each other, anyway, and especially in Teddie’s repeated attempts to conquer couch territory — and girl lap — for himself. At the very least, no one seems to notice that this time, it’s intentional when Yu kisses the corner of Yosuke’s mouth. That was no miss, right? He went right for it. For a heart-stopping moment Yosuke thought Yu had been about to kiss him on the lips, and then—

And then there’s his best friend’s warm lips, pressed to his skin, and a warm hand, pressed to his shoulder, and Yosuke forgets to keep breathing for a moment or two.

He feels like he’s coming out of a trance when Yu pulls away slowly, and for a moment his entire world is the gentle smile on his best friend’s lips. Then, all at once, reality snaps back in to invade their little bubble when Chie, still trying to dislodge Teddie, accidentally kicks Yosuke right in the ribs.

“ _Ghak—_ what the hell, Chie?!”

An argument erupts, but Yosuke, despite his best efforts, finds his thoughts strangely distracted. Did Yu... linger? Did that kiss linger? Hell, this is stupid, why is he thinking about that kiss lingering just a few moments longer than the others? He shouldn’t care about that. In fact, that’s— even if it did, it should freak him out, right? That’d... that’d be... weird. So...

Paying no mind to his racing pulse and certainly not thinking about the potential reasons for why he might have a racing pulse in the first place, Yosuke simply watches as Yu straightens up. He folds one arm over his chest, and cups his chin with his free hand. Then he glances at the time.

“We made it,” he declares, and gives the whole group an approving thumbs up.

The sounds Chie and Naoto make are the sounds Yosuke is sure he’d be making, too, if this whole debacle hadn’t completely destroyed his ability to form coherent speech.

“We are _never_ doing this again,” Chie laments, her arm draped loosely across Yukiko’s shoulders now that the other girl has taken to looping both arms around Chie’s middle and pressing her face into Chie’s side while she sighs and giggles to no one about nothing in particular. Rise has wormed her way off the couch and dragged Naoto with her, and, with apparent intent, she’s shoved Naoto and Kanji together so that she can use the pair of them as a combination pillow/recliner/bed.

“Mmm, I’m sleepy now. Goodnight!” she chirps, completely ignoring Naoto and Kanji as they start yelling at her to get off of them in unison. Given the fact that they’re not actually trying to remove her, they don’t really seem to be that upset by the situation, Yosuke thinks.

Teddie claims the now freed up couch real estate for himself, leaning on Yukiko, who just lets him do it. She seems to be falling asleep too, and apparently couldn’t care less. Chie seems to care, given the look on her face, but she can’t reach far enough around Yukiko to do anything effective about it.

Yosuke hasn’t moved. Yosuke is still sitting on the floor, one knee drawn up to his chest like he’s totally at his ease, which he is. Because why wouldn’t he be? He can’t even pretend to be surprised when Yu folds his tall, solid frame down onto the floor beside him. He’s even less surprised when he finds a head full of silver hair resting on his shoulder. And he feels no surprise at all when a hand slips into and tangles with his own. Nope. Zero surprise here. This is all completely expected and normal and, really, Yosuke doesn’t even have any particular feelings about it.

Yu’s drunk, after all. He’ll be back to his normal self tomorrow.

Slowly everyone quiets down. Kanji and Naoto accept their fates, and may, actually, be fine with them, given the way they settle back against the couch. One of Naoto’s arms is curled loosely around Rise’s hip, and Kanji’s big enough to hold them both against him. There’s a strangely determined look on his face as he stares at the TV over their heads, even though he’s clearly not actually watching it. Yukiko and Teddie passed out not long after Rise did, and Yukiko is actually snoring. Chie’s got her legs tucked up on the couch, now, and doesn’t seem to realize she’s absently petting Yukiko’s hair while she, too, watches the TV unseeingly.

Yosuke feels more than he hears Yu’s breathing even out. He doesn’t realize his best friend is still awake until he hears a whisper:

“Happy New Year, Yosuke.”

Swallowing hard around his heart in his throat, thinking about the wish he made at the shrine and wondering about everything and nothing at once, Yosuke squeezes Yu’s hand and murmurs back, “Happy New Year, partner.”

**Author's Note:**

> now i have mr. brightside stuck in my head. anyway i don't know where this came from either.
> 
> but anyway take one billion pairings + communal adopted son teddie in a kissy NYE pile in complete contrast to the awfully dark shit i posted yesterday. why have i written like 5500 words of fic in two days. no one knows.
> 
> also: amazake is a traditional drink that they'll give out at shinto shrines on new years.


End file.
